But, if you need to do that in commercial settings, e.g., a school or business, you’ll need to purchase the license. If you want to install virtual machines for personal use, VMware WorkStation Player lets you do that for free. You can install a Windows-powered virtual machine on your Mac PC and do just that. Let's say you use a PC running macOS but need to code software for the Windows operating system. You could also use virtual machines to develop software for other platforms. You can install that OS on a virtual machine to see how it works and decide if it’s right for you. You may want to adopt a new operating system but are not yet sure of your decision. There are many use cases for virtual machines.

You can copy and paste files from a virtual machine to the host and vice versa. You can connect and disconnect any pre-configured devices in a virtual machine. For instance, you can change the amount of memory allocated to each virtual machine. You can manage your virtual machines in several ways with this tool.

You’ll have to pay for the Workstation Pro license if you want to run multiple VMs simultaneously. However, VMware Player lets you run only one virtual machine at a time– you must close the current virtual machine before opening a new one. Virtual machines are isolated from the rest of the host system, and a single host system can have multiple virtual machines. Most modern PCs meet this requirement, so there should be no cause for alarm. There are minimum requirements for a host system, including at least 400Mhz processing speed, 128MB memory, and 1GB free disk space. Your PC is the host system, while the virtual machine you install is the guest operating system. It uses a hypervisor to separate the virtual machine's resources from your PC's hardware so that you can use it efficiently. The virtual machine functions like a separate computer (opens in new tab) running its own CPU, memory, network interface, and storage. It lets you create virtual machines on a Windows or Linux PC. Virtualization is the core function of the VM Workstation Player.

(Image credit: VMware) VMware Workstation Player: Features

Vmware workstation non commercial